Democracy Needs Defending Especially When It’s Awkward

I spent most of Trump’s first term representing America in Muslim-majority countries. A bomb going off near the embassy didn’t shake me the way the sincere questions about democracy did.

Photo by Element5 Digital on Unsplash

I was a U.S. diplomat for over ten years. The toughest day of my career wasn’t when a bomb exploded outside the embassy.

Walking back to my desk afterward, the embassy felt different, vulnerable. But I knew we were in good hands. Multiple levels of American and local government protected us. We were prepared. Months earlier, I practiced evacuating a mock burning building.

The toughest days were after the 2016 election. I was stationed in Muslim countries for much of Trump’s first presidency.

The first people I saw after the election result were my Senegalese embassy team, who mentored and trained me. Local embassy staff serve alongside Americans, sometimes at personal risk. Reading the headlines about calls for Muslim bans, tracking Muslims, and closing Mosques hurt.

Because they’d seen how multicultural the American diplomatic corps is, I didn’t get the hardest questions from them.

Outside the embassy, the questions made me rethink what I knew about democracy.

Locals in Senegal and Egypt often asked:

How does a democracy elect someone running on this kind of rhetoric?

Me: Democracy does this sometimes. We abide by the votes no matter what.

How can this speech be allowed?

Me: In America, the government cannot punish you for your words except in very few cases.

Should we trust democracy if democracy can lead to this?

…

I thought democracy and liberalism would be easy to defend.

I knew democracy was the best form of government. I could feel it. But standing there in front of people hurt by this rhetoric, the explanations weren’t satisfying.

I realized for the first time that democracy can be deeply unpredictable, worrying, and strained. It requires active maintenance. It actively reshapes itself; it lacks overarching control. As Dan Williams writes, handing over power to people with different political or religious views and tolerating dangerous and offensive speech doesn’t come naturally to humans; “they are insights that must be achieved.”

The hardest part was free expression. Defending it sounds like defending the speech's content. But you’re actually defending everyone’s right to say what people or the government doesn’t agree with.

In Egypt, journalists and activists are regularly investigated, jailed, and sometimes disappeared. The laws allowing this aren’t labeled “censorship”. They protect public order or religion. The same tools used to “protect the peace” are what governments use to silence dissidents and opposition leaders.

Free expression is how people stay safe as they push back against those in power.

What the local front pages didn’t convey

I often clarified that the majority of Americans are not anti-Muslim. Americans elect Muslim members of Congress. America’s multiculturalism doesn’t change because of who is dominating the news.

I feel this deeply.

Sometimes, people told me I didn’t look American. I never doubted for a second that I am America. They were wrong.

My brother is America. He came here at 12 when his mom died, after cleaning graveyards and bagging groceries in Mexico. He learned English and put himself through college. He became a decorated U.S. Marine Captain.

I learned English in public school and relied on subsidized school lunches. A few years after waiting tables and attending community college, I became a diplomat at 23.

My brother and I made careers in elite public service despite coming from an immigrant family with no political connections. Most systems in history kept power where it started. The messiness of democracy is what decentralized control looks like.

Even U.S. political families lose elections and power. The power to choose is the people’s. This also means elections can lead to any result.

The U.S. system needs work and is causing pain. It is far from ideal.

But the underlying structure is worth defending. Power can be contested, speech the government hates is still protected, and elections decide outcomes.

I’m honored I got to do that work. Even on the days when it hurt.

That’s when it’s most important to defend. When it’s hard. When you’re questioning whether democracy deserves it.